The Billionaire's Bargain (Blackout Billionaires Book 1) Read online

  She who crawled onto his lap, jerking her skirt up and straddling his powerful thighs.

  But it was he who threw oil onto their fire, ratcheting their desire from a blaze into a consuming inferno.

  With a snarl that vibrated through his chest and over her nipples, he tugged her head back and opened his mouth over her neck. She arched into the hot, wet caress of tongue and teeth, her hands shifting from his shoulders to his hair and holding on. Every flick and suck echoed low in her belly, between her thighs. Fleetingly, the thought that she should be embarrassed at how drenched her panties were flitted through her head. But the clamp of his hand on her hip and the roll of his hips, stroking the hard, thick length of his cock over her sex, obliterated every rationalization.

  Think? All she could do was feel.

  Pleasure, its claws tipped with greed, tore at her. She whimpered, clung to him.

  “Again,” she ordered. Begged. Didn’t matter. As long as he did it again.

  “That’s it,” he praised against her throat, licking a path to her ear, where he nipped the outer curve. Hell, when had that become an erogenous zone? “Tell me what you want, what you need from me. I’ll give it to you, sweetheart. You just have to ask.”

  Keep turning me inside out. Keep holding me like I’m wanted, cherished. Keep making me forget who I am.

  But those pleas veered too close to exposing that part of her she’d learned to protect with the zeal of a dragon guarding a treasure.

  So instead she gave him what she could. What she’d be too embarrassed to admit in the light of day. “Here.” With trembling, jerky movements, she yanked down the top of her dress, drew him to her bared breasts. “Kiss me. Mark me.”

  He followed through on his promise, giving her what she’d requested. His tongue circled her nipple, lapped at it, swirled before sucking so hard the corresponding ache twinged deep and high inside her. She tried to hold in her cry but couldn’t. Not when lust arrowed through her, striking at the heart of her. He murmured against her flesh, switching breasts, and treating her other peak to the same erotic torture. Skillful fingers plucked and pinched the tip that was damp from his mouth.

  “More,” she gasped. “Oh, God, more.”

  “Tell me.” The hand on her hip tightened, and he delivered another slow, luxurious stroke to her empty, wet sex. “Tell me once more. I want your voice, your words.”

  Frustration, the last stubborn remnants of shyness and passion warred within her. Her lips moved, but the demand make me come that howled inside her head refused to emerge. Finally she grabbed the hand at her waist and slid it over her hiked-up dress, down her inner thigh and between her legs. She pressed his palm to her, moaning at the temporary relief of him cupping her.

  “You’re cheating,” he teased, but the almost guttural tone had her hips bucking against him. As did his, “You’re soaked. For me.”

  “Yes,” she rasped. “For you. Only for you.” Truth. That piece of herself, she offered him. She’d never been this hungry, this desperate before. Not even for—no!

  She flung herself away from the intrusive thought. Not here. In this hall, there was only room for her and this nameless, faceless man, who nonetheless handled her like the most desirable, beautiful creature he’d ever held. Or at least that’s what she was convincing herself of for these stolen moments.

  “Touch me,” she whispered, grinding down against his hand. “Please touch me.”

  The fingers still sweeping caresses over her nipple abandoned her flesh to cradle her face. He tipped her head down until their mouths met. “Don’t beg me to touch you,” he said, his lips grazing hers with each word. “You’ll never have to beg me to do that.”

  He sealed the vow with a plunge of his finger inside her.

  She cried out, tossing her head back on her shoulders as pleasure rocked through her like an earthquake, cracking her open, exposing her.

  “Damn,” he swore. “So damn tight. So damn...” He bit off the rest of his litany, slowly pulling free of her, then just as slowly, just as tenderly thrusting back inside. But she didn’t want slow, didn’t want tender. And she told him so with a hard, swift twist of her hips, taking him deeper. “Sweetheart,” he growled, warned.

  “No,” she panted. “I need to... Please.” He’d said she didn’t need to plead with him, but if it would get her what she craved—release, oblivion—she wasn’t above it.

  With a snarl, he crushed his mouth to hers, tongue driving between her lips as he buried himself inside her. She moaned into his kiss, even as she spread her legs wider, granting him deeper access to her body. And he took it. He withdrew one finger and returned to her with two, working them into her flesh, working her.

  Something snapped within her, and she rode his hand, rode the exquisite storm he whipped to a frenzy with every stroke, every brush of his thumb over her clit, every curl of his fingertips on that place high and deep in her sex. He played her, demanding her body sing for him. And God, did it.

  With one last rub over that, before now, untouched place, she splintered, screaming into his mouth. And he swallowed it, clutching her to him, holding her tight as she crashed headlong into the abyss, a willing sacrifice to pleasure.

  * * *

  Isobel snuggled under her warm blanket, grabbing ahold of those last few moments of lazy sleepiness before Aiden cried out, demanding she come free him from his crib and feed him. She sighed, curling into her pillow...

  Wait. Her pillow wasn’t this firm. Frowning, she rolled over...or tried to roll over. Something prevented the movement...

  Oh, hell.

  Not something. Someone.

  She stiffened as reality shoved the misty dredges of sleep away and dragged in all the memories of the night before. Gala. Blackout. Finding a mysterious man. Calming him. Laughing with him. Kissing him...

  She jerked away, her lashes lifting.

  Weak, hazy pink-and-orange light poured in through the large window at the end of the hall. Morning, but just barely. So maybe about six o’clock. Still, the dawn-tinged sky provided enough light to realize the warm blanket was really a suit jacket. Instead of a mattress, she perched on a strong pair of muscular thighs. And her pillow was a wide, solid chest covered in a snow-white dress shirt.

  Heart pounding like a heavy metal-drum solo, she inched her gaze up to the patch of smooth golden skin exposed by the buttons undone at a powerful throat. Her belly clenched, knots twisting and pulling tight as she continued her wary, slow perusal.

  A carved-from-a-slab-of-stone jaw dusted with dark stubble.

  An equally hard chin with just the faintest hint of a cleft.

  A beautiful, sensual mouth that promised all kinds of decadent, corrupting pleasures. Pleasures she had firsthand knowledge that he could deliver. She clearly remembered sinking her teeth into the bottom, slightly fuller curve.

  Suppressing a shiver that he would surely feel, as they were pressed so closely together, she continued skimming her gaze upward past a regal, patrician nose and sharp, almost harsh cheekbones.

  As she raised her scrutiny that last scant inch to his eyes, his dense, black, ridiculously long lashes lifted.

  She sucked in a painful breath. And froze. Except for her frantic pulse, which reverberated in her head like crashing waves relentlessly striking the shore. Deafening her.

  Not because of the striking, piercing amber eyes that could’ve belonged to a majestic eagle.

  No. Because she recognized those eyes.

  It’d been two years since they’d coldly stared at her over a yawning, freshly dug grave with a flower-strewn mahogany casket suspended above it. But she’d never forget them.

  Darius King.

  Gage’s best friend.

  The man who blamed her for Gage’s death.

  The man who hated her.

  Hated her... Hated her... As the words—and th
e throbbing pain of them—sank into her brain, her paralysis shattered. She scrambled off him, uncaring of how clumsy her backward crab-walk appeared. She just needed to be away from him. From the shock that quickly bled from his gaze and blazed into rage and disgust.

  God, no. How could she have kissed...touched... Let him...

  You’re fucking him, aren’t you? Admit it, goddamn you. Admit it! You’re fucking my best friend! You whore!

  The memory of Gage’s scream ricocheted off the walls of her skull, gaining volume and power by the second. Darius hadn’t been the first man he’d thought she’d been cheating with—not even the third or fifth. But she’d never seen him as enraged, as out-of-control at the thought of her being with this man. Gage had never physically abused her during their marriage, but that night... That night she’d truly been afraid he would hit her.

  Afterward she’d made a conscious effort to not look at Darius, not be alone in the same room with him if she couldn’t avoid him altogether. Even after he’d married an iceberg of a woman, she’d maintained her distance.

  And now, not only had she laughed and talked with him, but she had allowed him inside her body. She’d allowed him to bring her the most soul-shattering pleasure.

  Meeting his stare, she could read the condemnation there. The confirmation that she was indeed the whore Gage had called her.

  Humiliation, hurt and fury—at him and herself—barreled through her, propelling her to her feet. Snatching up her purse and shoes, she clutched them to her chest.

  “Isobel.” The voice that had caressed her ears with its deep, melodious tone, that had stirred desire with explicit words, now caused ice to coat her veins. Gage used to take great delight in telling her how much his friend disliked her. Though she now knew when her husband’s lips were moving, he was lying, hearing Darius’s frigid disdain directed at her, meeting his derisive gaze... She believed it now, just as she had then.

  “I-I...” She dragged in a breath, shaking her head as she backpedaled. “I need to go. I’m sorry,” she rasped.

  Hating that she’d apologized, that she sounded scared and...broken, she whirled around and damn near sprinted down the thankfully empty hallway, not feeling the cold marble under her feet. Or the stone as she escaped the mansion. None of the valets from the night before appeared, but she’d glimpsed the direction in which they’d driven off and followed that path.

  Twenty minutes later, with keys snatched from the valet stand and car successfully located, she exited onto the freeway. Though with every mile she steadily placed between her and the mansion—and Darius—she couldn’t shake the feeling of being pursued.

  Couldn’t shake the sense that she could run, but couldn’t hide.

  But that damn sure wouldn’t stop her from trying.

  Three

  Darius stood outside the weathered brick apartment building, the chill of the October morning not having evaporated yet.

  At eight thirty, the overcast sky didn’t add any cheer to this South Deering neighborhood. The four rows of identical windows facing the front sported different types of shades, and someone had set potted plants with fake flowers by the front entrance, but nothing could erase the air of poverty that clung to this poor, crime-stricken section of the city. Foam cups, paper and other bits of trash littered the patch of green on the left side of the apartment complex. Graffiti and gang tags desecrated the side of the neighboring building. It sickened him that only thirty minutes away, people lived in almost obscene wealth, a good many of them willingly choosing to pretend this kind of poverty didn’t exist. He’d been born into those rarefied circles, but he wasn’t blind to the problems of classism, prejudice and ignorance that Chicago faced.

  Still... Gage’s son was growing up here, in this place that hovered only steps above a tenement. And that ate at Darius like the most caustic acid.

  Stalking up the sidewalk, he approached the front entrance. A lock sat above the handle, but on a whim, he tugged on it, and the door easily opened.

  “You have to be kidding me,” he growled. Anyone off the street could walk into the building, leaving all the residents here vulnerable where they should feel safest. Aiden being one of the most vulnerable.

  Darius stepped into the dimly lit foyer, the door shutting behind him. Rectangular mailboxes mounted the wall to his right, and to his left, the steel doors to an elevator. In front of him, a flight of stairs stretched to the upper floors. With one last glance at the elevator doors, he headed for the stairs. He wasn’t trusting the elevator in a building this damn old.

  According to the information his investigator had provided, Isobel lived on the third floor. He climbed several flights of stairs and entered the door that led to her level. Like the lobby, the hallway was clean, even if the carpet was threadbare. Bulbs lit the area, and the paint, while not fresh, wasn’t as desperately in need of a new coat as the downstairs. The broken lock on the front door notwithstanding, it appeared as if the landlord, or at least the residents, cared about their home.

  Seconds later, he arrived in front of Isobel’s apartment door, standing on a colorful welcome mat depicting a sleeping puppy. It should’ve seemed out of place, but oddly it didn’t strike him that way. But it did serve to remind him that a young boy lived behind the closed door. A boy who deserved to live in a home where he and the puppy could run free and play. A place with a yard, a swing set.

  A safe place.

  Anger rekindled in his chest, and raising his fist, he knocked on the door. Moments passed, and it remained shut. He rapped on the door again. And still no one answered.

  Suppressing a growl, he tucked his hands into the pockets of his coat and narrowed his gaze on the floor.

  “Isobel, I know you’re home. I can see the shadow of your feet. So open the door,” he ordered.

  Several more seconds passed before the sound of locks twisting and disengaging reached him, and then she stood in the entrance.

  He deliberately inhaled a calming breath. For the entire drive from his Lake Forest home, he’d tried to prepare himself for seeing her again. It’d been a week since the night of the blackout. A week since he’d suffered a panic attack, and she’d held his hand and dragged him back from the edge with her teasing, silly conversation and lilting laughter. A week since he’d feasted on her mouth, experienced the tight-as-hell grip of her body spasming around his fingers, and her greedy cries of pleasure splintering around his ears.

  A week since he woke and the piercing anticipation of finally glimpsing the face of the mysterious woman he’d embraced faded into a bright, hot anger as he realized her true identity.

  Yes, he’d tried to ready himself for the moment they’d face each other again. And staring down at her now, with all that long, thick hair tumbling over her shoulders, framing a beautiful face with fey eyes that should have existed only within the pages of a fantasy novel, his attempt at preparation had been for shit. Even in a faded pink tank top and cotton pajama pants, with what appeared to be fat leprechauns and rainbows, she knocked him on his ass.

  And he resented her for it. Hated himself more.

  Because no matter how he tried, he couldn’t forget how she’d burned in his arms that night. Exploded. Never had a woman been that uninhibited and hot for him. She’d scorched him so that even now—even a week later—he still felt the marks on his fingers, his chest, his cock. He had an inkling why his best friend had been driven crazy because of her infidelities.

  Because imagining Isobel aflame like that with another man had a green-tinted anger churning his own gut.

  Which was completely ridiculous. Gage had tortured himself over this woman. It would be a breezy spring day in hell before Darius allowed himself to be her next victim.

  “What do you want?” Isobel asked, crossing her arms under her breasts. Her obviously braless breasts.

  “To talk,” he said, trying and failing to
completely keep the snap out of his voice. “And I’d rather not do it out in the hallway.”

  Her delicate chin kicked up, and even though she stood almost a foot shorter than his own six feet three inches, she continued defiantly standing there, a female Napoleon guarding her empire. “We don’t have anything to talk about, so whatever you came here to say should be a very short conversation. The hallway is as good a place as any.”

  “Fine.” He smiled, and it must have appeared as false as it felt because her eyes narrowed on him. “But the private investigator I hired to find you also spoke with your neighbors. Including a Mrs. Gregory, who lives across the hall. A lovely woman, from what he tells me. Seventy-three, lives alone, never misses an episode of the Young and the Restless and is a terrible gossip. At this very moment, she probably has her ear against the door, trying to eavesdrop on our conversation. So if you don’t mind her finding out where you spent the night of the blackout—and how you spent it—I don’t either.”

  Her head remained tilted at that stubborn angle, and the flat line of her mouth didn’t soften. But she did slant a glance around him to peek at the closed door across the hall. Whatever she saw made her lips flatten even more.

  “Come in.” She stepped back, allowing him to pass by her. When he moved into the tiny foyer, she called out, “Good morning, Mrs. Gregory,” and shut the door. “I swear that woman could tell the cops where Jimmy Hoffa is buried,” she muttered under her breath.

  Humor, unexpected and unwelcome, rippled through his chest. He remembered this about her from the night of the blackout. Funny, self-deprecating, charming. Given everything he knew of Isobel’s character, the side she’d shown him in the darkness must’ve been a charade.

  Her shock and horror the following morning had been real, though.